Map: Where are the Journal News employees in your neighborhood?

The map indicates the addresses of all Journal News Employees in the New York Tri-State area. Each dot represents an individual Journal News employee -- a reporter, editor or staffer. The data does not include freelancers — reporters or photographers — which can be hired without being an employee. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location is a responsible reporter or editor, just that they are a reporter or editor.

Data for all categories is included, but certain information is not available on an individual basis.

To create the map, Talk of the Sound submitted Google searches for the names and addresses of all Journal News employees in the New York Tri-State area. By state law, the information is public record.

Readers are still putting together records and could not immediately provide some data. The map will be updated when that data is released.

UPDATE: The Journal News has removed their gun map. Before you ask. "No, we are not taking down our map".

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute has a thoughtful article on the journalistic considerations behind the Journal News decision to publish their map. I find myself entirely in agreement with his views on this issue.

The problem is not that the Gannett-owned Journal News was too aggressive. The problem is that the paper was not aggressive enough in its reporting to justify invading the privacy of people who legally own handguns in two counties it serves.

GOING GLOBAL: El Pais, the largest-circulated daily in Spain, has linked this article. Politiken, one of Denmark's leading papers, has linked this article. The Daily Mail, the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper, linked this article. Toronto Sun, one of Canada's largest papers, has linked this article. Lenta.ru, one of the most popular Russian language online resources, has linked this article.

My map is a "rather sad-looking Google map" according to Rebecca at The Gothamist.

Talk of the Sound readers and other bloggers are involved in a sort of a crowd-sourcing on gather home addresses and other contact information for Journal News employees. Based on reader submissions and this site in particular I have created a list of names and information sought. I then mapped what I had (above). I will add what more I get from readers and my own poking around. If you see some public data that matches, send me a link to robertcox@talkofthesound.com and I will add it as quick as I can. Be advised that the Journal News has been in downsizing mode for the past several years. I have to wonder if all these names are current employees but we will treat them as such until we learn otherwise. The map was begun with 11 names.

Help fill in the blanks below.

** = loaded into Google map

UPDATE 12/27 11:30 AM: With the assistance of readers JK, SS, BW, AH and others, the following entries have been updated and added to the map. More are on the way.

You will note that one Journal News employee, Ian Thane Grauel, has recently removed his LinkedIn profile and Twitter account. Also, that Cyndee has removed her Facebook page and hidden her tweets. I have received requested to remove the names of former Journal News employees and freelancers from this list and will continue to do so if those people make such a request.

UPDATE 12/27 6:30 PM:

Updated the database for Stacy A. Anderson, Jane Lerner, Steve Lieberman and Herb Pinder but still no home address information so still not on the map. The database and map has been updated for Janet Hasson. New to the map are Robert Brum, Anjanette Rieger Delgado, Randi Weiner, James Kwasnik, Tania Savayan, Phil Reisman. The map now has 22 names.

Liz Anderson removed photos of her children from her Facebook page. She has also changed her Twitter account from @lizsteinke to @lizscribe.

UPDATE 12/28 1:30 PM:

Readers have provided enough information to put Alex Weisler, Hema Easley, Frank A. Becerra, Jr and Jonathon Bandler on the map which now has 26 names. Make that 27 names, I just added Steve Lieberman after reader SM showed I needed to edit Nancy Cutler and Lieberman. I removed Nicole Futterman, Dan Donovan, Jamie O'Grady and Howard Megdal as I am informed they are not full-time employees. I removed Rebecca Baker because she no longer works at the paper. I am finding that the Journal News has a lot of people listed on its web site as working for them who do not seem to actually work for them.

Today, based on popular demand, I made the following FOIL request to the County Clerk's in Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties.

Dear Mr. Clerk,

This is a public records request.

I would like to obtain a copy of the FOIL request made by the Journal News on through which they obtained information on pistol permit, any follow up communications with them regarding that request as well as any documents they obtained under FOIL. If they filed any sort of litigation to obtain additional information (e.g. an Article 78, etc.) I would like to obtain that as well. If this is a matter of forwarding some emails I would consider that an acceptable fill of my request.

Where possible I would like records in electronic format. If possible, I would like the electronic documents converted into standard Microsoft Office format (Word, Excel, etc.). I would like all communications including the delivery of documents to take place via email as much as is possible based on the nature of the available records.. I would like the Records Access Officer to certify that the records are genuine. If the documents only exist in paper form I am willing to pay. If the cost of converting the documents to a standard electronic format or making photos copies exceeds $20.00 I would like prior notification of the estimated cost to comply with this records request.

Sincerely,

Robert Cox
Managing Editor
Talk of the Sound

UPDATE: 12/30 8:30 AM

I was interviewed for this article below but none of my answers were included. The writer, Ms. O'Donnell failed to mention in her email to me or in the article itself that she was, up until recently, a long-time employee of the Journal News.

While she did not include my explanation as to why I created the map, she did manage to find a journalism professor to call me "childish and petulant".

Some critics retaliated by posting reporters' and editors' addresses and other personal information online.

Howard Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, called the critics' response childish and petulant.

"It doesn't move the issue of gun control to the level of intelligent public discussion," he said. "Instead, it transforms what should be a rational public debate on a contentious issue into ugly gutter fighting."

Draw your own conclusions about Ms. O'Donnell and Professor Good or why she gives him four paragraphs to criticize my actions and I get none to explain my actions.

Here is my Q&A with the reporter that got left on the cutting-room floor.

Q. What was your general reaction to the article and the map.

A. Given the nature of my hyper-local site, I monitor lohud.com 24/7 so I saw the story as it was published to the web. I could not believe what I was seeing -- what I perceived to be a transparent attempt to intimidate and ostracize law-abiding citizens by using the Newtown murders as a pre-text to advance an anti-gun agenda and draw traffic to the site.

You worked there so you know about their cost-cutting, outsourcing and pay-wall approach and how desperate things have become at the paper. At best, this map reeked of a stunt to drive traffic at the expense of private citizens who had done nothing that warranted having their privacy violated. In fact, I will not be surprised if there is a class-action lawsuit on privacy grounds.

I can only laugh when the publisher claims the map is "journalism". The map is more like voyeurism than journalism with the Journal News acting as a digital "Peeping Tom", peering into the bedrooms of thousands of people just because they can. } The result is a map that is a bizarre form of "gun porn".

The thought occurred to me to make a contra-Google Map the instant I saw the article. I was hesitant to do so because I am a First Amendment advocate and generally want to be supportive of newspapers and those who work there. I know plenty of people who work at Gannett, the Freedom Forum and the Newseum. I have spoken on panels at many of their events with people like Gene Policinski, Ken Paulson, John Seigenthaler and many others. I had the honor of being part of one of the inaugural exhibits at the Newseum for being the first blogger formerly credentialed as a blogger to cover a federal trial (Scooter Libby).

I knew that creating such a contra-map was a serious, highly provocative move and would likely cause a number of the people referenced above to be very unhappy with me/ I mulled this over for two days. In the meantime my readers had taken it upon themselves to collect information about reporters and editors. They were also linking to Chris Fountain up in Greenwich, CT who is the one who really got the ball rolling.

After being on the fence for a couple of days I decided to organize the efforts of my readers, create a crowd-sourcing project and start to build the contra-map.

Q. Why did you decide to make the reporters' and editors' information public on the web.

I trust you are aware that unlike most states, New York (and California) requires that a pistol permit holder to register EVERY handgun they own not just get the license. The initial Journal News FOIL request sought this information. I expect that the Journal News will ultimately prevail and get this information and update their map and make it searchable by weapon type. I would oppose that as I do the current iteration of the map. I did not want to merely respond but discourage further development of their map or at least give them pause.

I wanted a direct and proportionate response in the spirit of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I could not think of anything more direct and proportionate than flipping the script by using public records to map the folks at the Journal News the way they mapped my friends and neighbors. I hope they now realize that in the age of social media and blogs, the people known formerly as the audience, can throw a counterpunch from time to time. My map was my counterpunch.

UPDATE: 12/30 8:45 AM

Per my FOIL request (above) to the Putnam County Clerk, I obtain a copy of the email sent by the Journal News reporter who wrote the map story. From this it is clear the Journal News sought (and continues to seek) not to create just a map of "pistol permit holders" but a map of every gun registered in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. The have requested information on every type of weapon including "manufacturer, type of weapon, caliber, serial number and model".

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I hereby request records or portions thereof pertaining to Putnam County’s pistol permit database.

I am requesting the names, complete addresses, the type of permits issued (carry concealed/possess on
premises/possess carry during employment), and the type of weapons possessed, including the weapon's
manufacturer, type of weapon, caliber, serial number and model, for all permit holders in your database. Also, please provide a complete record layout and data dictionary for your pistol permits database.

I would like all of the records in electronic format, such as a database, spreadsheet, plain text file or other digital format.

I have been instructed instructed by you that state penal law prohibits the disclosure of the types of weapons possessed by permit holders even though such information is collected by the county. If it is determined that that category of information cannot be released please process my request, excluding the protected information, without delay. In your response, please indicate the specific sections of the law that expressly prohibit the disclosure of the protected information.

As you know, all government records and data are presumed public unless there is a specific provision of law barring their release. So while the law expressly says names and addresses of permit holders are to be made public, if the law does not specifically bar the release of the types of permits issued and types of weapons possessed, that information can and should be released. In that case, I would expect that information to be included.

As Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, has said in
several opinions regarding the disclosure of pistol permit data beyond names and addresses, “the only instance in which records must be withheld would involve the case in which a statute prohibits disclosure. Again, as I interpret §400.00 of the Penal Law, there is nothing in that statute that precludes the custodian of the records at issue from disclosing the records.”

If there are any fees for copying the records requested, please inform me before filling the request or please supply the records without informing me if the fees are not in excess of $25.

This request is in relation to a news event. Because of the timely nature of this request, I ask that it be expedited. Also, because of time constraints, I ask that if there are any concerns or questions regarding this request that I be contacted by telephone at 914‐629‐1060 or by email at dworley@lohud.com.

As you know, the Freedom of Information Law requires that an agency respond to a request within five business days of receipt of a request. Therefore, I would appreciate a response as soon as possible and look forward to hearing from you shortly. If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name and address of the person or body to whom an appeal should be directed.

This office is in receipt of your electronic mail message dated December 17th, 2012 in which you request certain information in electronic format for all pistol permit files maintained by this office.

This request is quite involved and will yield voluminous results. Further, certain information requested may be withheld due to operation of law.

This office is currently working with its IT provider to compile the requested information. Upon a complete compilation of the information suitable for dissemination we will provide you with an estimate of cost as well as instructions on how to complete your request.

I hope that you can work with this office by illustrating patience and if you have any questions please contact this office.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely

Michael C. Bartolotti

For those not familiar with the Freedom of Information Law in New York State, as a general summary, an agency has 5 business days to acknowledge receipt of a request for information and 22 business days after that to deny, fulfill or partially deny/partially fulfill a records request. After the 22 days the agency must provide the records or explain why they need more time and then provide a date certain when the records will be available. As a practical matter, a public records officer can keep a request pending for 27 business days and the requestor has no grounds to appeal or challenge the agency. Agencies can also charge for records based on a scale described in the statute.

In this case, the Clerk got the request on Monday December 17th. The Clerk then waited until the last day of the week, Friday December 21st before acknowledging receipt and has still not provided the records. Adding in three holidays -- Christmas, New Year's Day and Martin Luther King Day -- the clerk does not have to deliver the records until January 25th, 2013.

The Clerk's in Rockland County and Westchester County had the same option and chose to expedite the request. Readers can draw their own conclusions as to why 2 clerks turned over the requested records a month earlier than required and 1 clerk has still not turned over the requested records.

I hope to have a copy of communications between the Journal News and the other two clerks soon.

There has been a great deal of interest from readers in such a list so, with permission, we reprint that list below. The list is based on online resources and volunteers reviewing the print editions of the paper to identify advertisers. According to the WCFOA, the focus was on consumer-oriented advertiser so not every advertised was included in this list.

The WCFOA is encouraging its members and supporters to write a short letter which starts by "quickly outlining the irresponsible Journal News act of publishing the names and addresses of pistol license holders (and a Google Map with directions and family members names)". The want the letters to state "you will no longer patronize any advertiser who uses Gannett unless and until that advertiser withholds further ads until Gannett takes down the pistol license page and ceases attacking lawful firearm ownership."

Stacy A. Anderson and Yaron Weitzman were removed as they no longer work at the Journal News. Nancy Cutler, Elizabeth Ganga, Thane Grauel were on the map and updated. Scott Faubel is not on the map but was updated.

There are 92 names on the list. That gets up to 42 names on the map. So we are just short of half at this point although may me understanting things as some of the 92 may no longer work at the Journal News or work as freelancers. We are only interested in full-time employees.

The list is now color-coded. Employees in GREEN are on the map but may be missing some information which is indicated in RED. Employees in ALL RED are not on the map because we do not have home address information.

There have been hundreds of emails with lots of suggestions but there are a few folks that have been working these names very hard over the past couple days and I want to acknowledge them by initials -- JK, PT, BM, BG, SM, CB, MR, GA, JD, SK, BW, SS, RH, GB,

SMALL FAVOR TO MY TEAM: While I have this crack team of researches hard at work I will take everything you can find on these two individuals James Vincent Bonanno and his son, Vince James Bonanno. You can certainly appreciate that given my willingness to take on causes like this Journal News map I have made more than my share of The Bonannos are currently suing me for defamation in New York State Supreme Court because I accurately reported on their various misdeeds. They both work for the local school district.

This is the father…

James Vincent Bonanno
24 Ronalds Avenue
New Rochelle, NY

Not sure where the son lives…

Vince James Bonanno ("Little Jimmy")

Any information you can pull on them will be appreciated. Little Jimmy, a heroin addict who is in the Westchester County Methadone Program has at least one prior arrest that I know of, not sure about the father. I believe the father is also involved in various side-businesses.

Matthew Brown joined The Journal News in March 1994. He covers a variety of assignments as a Visual Journalist for The Journal News and LoHud.com. For the past year, he has been able to bring his cameras into the schools, covering visual stories of interest to the communities in White Plains, Valhalla, Elmsford and Greenburgh School districts. Prior to that, he could be seen on the sidelines covering major and local sporting events or behind the scenes covering local news in the tri-county coverage area of The Journal News. Prior to coming to work for the Journal News, he worked as a Sports Picture Editor for the Providence (R.I.) Journal and as a Boston-based freelance photojournalist for the Associated Press wire service.

D. Scott Faubel is The Journal News/LoHud.com’s assistant local editor for central Westchester. He has been with the organization nearly 30 years, working in many of the communities it covers on the east side of the Hudson River. He grew up in Westchester and Putnam counties and now lives in White Plains.

Colin grew up in Washington, D.C., went to college in St. Paul, Minn., and now lives in Queens. Before joining The Journal News, he worked as an education reporter for Greenwich Time, a daily newspaper in Connecticut. Before that, he was a contributor to the business desk at the New York Sun and an assistant managing editor at the weekly Queens Chronicle.

Seth Harrison has been a staff photographer at The Journal News since 1987. In that time, he has covered 9/11, elections in Israel, national political conventions, several World Series, and all facets of local news. Covering national and international events is exciting, however Harrison gains tremendous satisfaction telling the stories close to home. "The mother who has dedicated her life to helping to find a cure for the rare and fatal disease that afflicts her son, the story of troubled children housed in residential treatment centers, or the scores of young Mormon's who come to this area every year to try to spread their faith, are the types of stories that allow me to step in to the lives of our neighbors and offer a glimpse of lives that, while unfolding right around the corner, are very different from our own." Harrison has a bachelor's degree in photojournalism from Rochester Institute of Technology. A lower Westchester resident, he was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in Yonkers and Hastings-on-Hudson. He is married with three daughters.

Laura Incalcaterra covers the environment, open space and zoning and planning issues for The Journal News. A Boston College graduate, Laura grew up in Rockland, attended East Ramapo schools and has worked for The Journal News since 1993. Laura has written features and covered North Rockland, crime, government and a host of other issues.

Jane Lerner covers the health and hospitals beat for The Journal News in Rockland. She has worked for The Journal News since 1991, first in Westchester, then in Rockland. She has a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where she completed a concentration in health and science writing. She lives in Rockland with her husband and two children.

Steve Lieberman joined The Journal News as an editor in February 1984 and became a reporter during the spring of 1986. He has covered police, courts and legal issues for more than a decade, after reporting on county, town, village and state governments and general issues. He received more than a dozen state awards for writing and reporting. Born and raised in The Bronx, he has lived in Rockland since 1988.

Rich Liebson grew up on military bases in the U.S. and Germany as the son of an Air Force master sergeant. After serving four years in the U.S. Army he was hired as a part-time reporter in 1983 and promoted to full-time in 1985. He's had a number of beats over the years including education, municipal government and public safety. He's also been a columnist and city editor for central Westchester. Rich lives in White Plains.

Akiko Matsuda has been a reporter with The Journal News since August 2005, covering the communities of North Rockland — Haverstraw town and village, Pomona, West Haverstraw, Stony Point. Before that, she covered local governments in upstate New York and Connecticut. A Japanese native, she was a reporter and news anchor for a TV station in Sapporo, covering various beats, including courts, politics and the environment.

Kathy Moore is the local editor for northern Westchester and Putnam counties. She began working at The Journal News in 1985 and covered towns, schools, Mount Vernon City Hall, Putnam County government and general assignment before becoming a bureau chief and then an editor overseeing the northern reaches of our coverage area. She works with a terrific staff in the paper’s Mount Kisco office whose writing and reporting fuels The Journal News, Lohud.com, the Northern Westchester and Yorktown/Cortlandt Express and their corresponding community blogs.

A municipal reporter for The Journal News since 1997, Barbara Livingston Nackman has covered local governments, events and breaking news from many communities. She began her journalism career by writing for bookselling and library publications. She reported on Putnam County communities for 10 years before getting her latest assignment, keeping track of Briarcliff Manor and Somers.

James O'Rourke
Westchester and Rockland County Night Reporter
The Journal News/LoHud.com
Home Address:
Home Phone:
Work Phone:
Work Email:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NightWriter_TJN
FB:
LinkedIN:
Image File:

Leah Rae covers the Port Chester-Rye Brook beat for The Journal News. She’s written about Westchester's immigrant population since joining the paper in 1994, and reported from two immigrant “hometowns” in Ecuador and Guatemala. Leah studied at the University of Toronto and worked at her hometown paper, The Buffalo News, before migrating downstate. She writes the Beyond Borders blog at immigration.lohudblogs.com and contributes to the Sound Shore blog at soundshore.lohudblogs.com.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, a staff writer for The Journal News/LoHud.com, covers several communities in Westchester County and writes about everything from local politics to schools to development issues. She joined the paper in October 2006 and expanded her byline to include Ramaswamy -- reportedly the longest byline ever. Previously, Swapna worked as a municipal reporter for the Home News Tribune in New Jersey and interned at the New York Daily News as a general assignment reporter. She earned a master's degree in journalism from New York University, where she was associate features editor of NYU's daily newspaper, The Washington Square News.

Khurram Saeed has been reporting for The Journal News since 2000. He writes about transportation issues in Rockland and has a weekly column called Getting There, which appears Wednesdays. Raised in Chestnut Ridge, Saeed previously worked at a newspaper in Washington and at magazines in Canada. Reach him at ksaeed@lohud.com or 845-578-2412.

Dwight R. Worley is an education/urban affairs reporter covering central Westchester schools for The Journal News, The White Plains Express and LoHud.com. He also serves as a database reporter for the publications, using computer-assisted reporting techniques to develop a wide range of stories about diversity, race, immigration and how changing demographics have impacted the Lower Hudson Valley. He joined The Journal News in 1999 as a business reporter.

UPDATE 12/31 2:20 PM I am in receipt of all communications between the Journal News and the Westchester County Clerk including the entire list of "pistol permits" (i.e., license holders) for Westchester County. My next project, once I complete the map, is to run all Journal News employees living in Westchester against the list I just got.

UPDATE 1/1 6:30 PM

Let me set to rest the speculation that the Journal News exempted their own employees from their map. Yaron Steinbuch is a photographer and editor at the Journal News. He resides in Croton, NY. He is in the Westchester County list provided to the Journal News and he is a dot in the map so we can at least put to rest any conspiracy theories in this regard.

Yaron Steinbuch, a native of Israel, served as a gunner and, later, combat medic in the Artillery Corps of the Israel Defense Forces. He also lived for a combined 12 years in Genoa, Italy, and Accra, Ghana. In addition to English, he speaks Hebrew and Italian. Yaron holds a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from New York University and a master's degree (with honors) from the Columbia University School of Journalism. He also is a black belt in taekwondo and a PADI-certified advanced scuba rescue diver. He is a former auxiliary police officer, and a police academy- and NRA-trained peace officer. His interests include motorcycling, martial arts, physical fitness and scuba diving.

I do not imagine many readers are going to take issue with this guy's CV which is pretty impressive.

Journal News Hypocrisy

Most of the readers of this article are not from the area and may have never heard of the Journal News until this week. Many of speculated on the motives behind their pistol LICENSE map. If you want just a few of very real examples of hypocrisy from the Journal News you can look at the following three exclusive stories than we have run over the past three months that the Journal News did not bother to report at all.

By any measure, this is a major story -- a member of the NJCAA National Championship women's basketball team delivers a savage beating to a teammate. While the victim of the assault is in the hospital she receives a text message from her assailant threatening to kill her, and her mother with a gun she keeps at an apartment on campus. School officials recovered a loaded .9mm Semi-Automatic Carbine. Before the District Attorney could bring charges the player fled the state. The player was kicked off the team, the other player suspended and the coach fired because he knew of the gun and failed to report it to school officials or the police.

The Journal News did not cover this story at all. Monroe College is a major advertiser in Westchester County.

Three students leave a school bus an enter a middle school with a gun after terrorizing a 6th grader on the bus by placing her in a headlock, holding the gun to her head and threatening her. The Journal News does not report on this incident.

In this case, a man was in the building for hours, he was found hiding in a closet in a second floor classroom by a teaching assistant. Even then, the building principal waited 45 minutes to call police and then lied about the entire incident to parents. The Journal News did not cover this story.

Four days after the Newtown Shooting, the local school board President and Superintendent make false claims that the district is in full compliance with New York State school safety laws. By statute the district must review and update plans for the district and each school in the district once a year. 10 of 11 schools have not been updated since 2001. The 11th was updated in 2006. The Journal News does not even cover the board meeting let along report this.

UPDATE: 1/2 9:15 AM: I appeared this morning on the Pat Campbell Show in Tulsa, OK to discuss the latest on the Journal News gun owner map: Pat Campbell Show 1-2-13

UPDATE: 1/2 12:10 PM: My FOIL request to the Westchester County Clerk resulted in my receiving the communications between the clerk's office and Journal News reporter Dwight Worley. It was a jumbled mess of documents which I cut, paste and re-ordered in chronological order so readers can follow the discussion between Deputy Clerk John J. Allen and Worley (link below).

I am requesting the names, complete addresses, the type of permits issued (carry concealed/possess on
premises/possess carry during employment), and the type of weapons possessed, including the weapon's
manufacturer, type of weapon, caliber, serial number and model, for all permit holders in your database.
Also, please provide a complete record layout and data dictionary for your pistol permits database.

There is a brief sidebar after Worley appeals the partial denial of the paper's request to County Executive Rob Astorino on December 17th and County Attorney Robert F. Meehan responds for Astorino on December 20th to deny the appeal. The Westchester County Clerk Tim Idoni is a Democrat from New Rochelle (where we operate) and Astorino is a Republican. If you are wondering how divided government works in Westchester read how the Democrats in the County Legislature literally turned out the lights in the chamber when they did not get their way on the 2013 budget.

This stands in stark contrast to the decided lack of cooperation in Putnam County, north of Westchester.

Authorities in a suburban county north of New York City said on Tuesday they will refuse to release names of local gun permit holders to a newspaper that has been publishing the identities of thousands of license-holding residents.

Putnam County Clerk Dennis Sant said he would defy a request for information about pistol permit holders from the White Plains, New York-based Journal News, which has come under criticism for publishing thousands of such identities already.

UPDATE 1/2 2:50 PM: I have been advised that the phone listing for Robert Brum in Pomona is incorrect. Please disregard 845-354-0243. That is the number for an older woman who was assigned that number after Robert Brum moved.

The suspicious package turned out to be a non-event but I was surprised to see this...

The article mentions Christopher Fountain who put up a lot of detail about the publisher, Janet Hasson and a few other Journal News employees. I am not sure how many, maybe 5 or 6 names. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association President Tom King is quoted saying “I’m sure that the blogger will take down the list as soon as the gun names come down.”

Meanwhile, we have now crowd-sourced 73 of 82 (89%) Journal News employees and mapped each one. We are in the process of clearing the list and I expect we will be at 100% shortly.

I would tell Mr. King a thing or three: (1) the Journal News intends to EXPAND their map to include Putnam County not take it down; (2) the Journal News was never just seeking names and addresses -- their Freedom of Information Request is for "names, complete addresses, the type of permits issued (carry concealed/possess on premises/possess carry during employment), and the type of weapons possessed, including the weapon's manufacturer, type of weapon, caliber, serial number and model, for all permit holders in your database; (3) (1) I have no intention of taking down my list or map regardless of what the Journal News does or what he says.

Undeterred by the fact that the handgun data was, by state law, a matter of the public record, aggrieved gun owners retaliated. A crowdsourced map of the home addresses of Journal News employees — including their home and work phone numbers when found — went up. The site also listed the names and addresses of the paper’s local and national advertisers, suggesting Journal News readers write letters threatening to boycott their goods and services unless the Journal News took its map down. The New York State & Pistol Association urged a boycott of all Gannett enterprises, asserting that the map had “put in harm’s way tens of thousands of lawful license holders.” [read entire article]

I met Jack in 2004 at a conference at Harvard. He wrote the PressBox column for Slate/Washington Post for years and I have emailed him from time to time. Between Jack Shafer and Jim Romensko you get about all you need in terms of media criticism. Jim was, for many years at Poynter. Jack writes today "Exactly how publishing public-record data constitutes privacy invasion is a topic worthy of a Poynter Institute seminar." Ironically, I was part of a Poynter conference on Online Journalism Ethics. I am pretty sure my map would have flunked the ethics test in that room back in 2006. The question then might be if my map flunks then what about the Journal News map? Having been part of this discussion in the past, I can tell you that some of the opinion would be driven by the idea that journalists are like members of a holy order on a divine mission. Not everyone at Poynter would take the side of the Journal News but I suspect they would also be against my map.

I can tell you one other thing -- the melodrama that has ensued with the armed guards and the envelopes of talcum powder is the sort of thing that validates the self-image of journalists that what they do is important (and thus justifies the low wages they are paid).

UPDATE: 1/9 9:00 AM - I was away this weekend and so not entirely top of this story. I was in Miami for the BCS Championship Game to see my Irish get stomped by Alabama :-(. I am back in New York.

On my way to the airport, I received an email from WPIX 11's Erica Pitzi requesting an interview. Many of the questions were to the effect of whether I felt I was to blame for people who were making death threats to Journal News employees or whether I would take my map down after a New York Times article reported on threats against Journal News employees. (My answer? "No"). Having viewed what aired, the piece struck me as fairer than I expected.

“I don’t think my map is particularly fair to the Journal News employees, many of them have nothing to do with the story, but that’s in the same spirit of the Journal News map which is equally unfair,” Cox told PIX 11 News over the phone from Florida.

In The New York Times article, Journal News Publisher Janet Hasson seeks to shift the issue away from Newtown, away from their map of gun owners, away from the entire issue of gun control and convert the issue into a First Amendment issue.

"As journalists, we are prepared for criticism," Hasson told The Times. "But in the U.S., journalists should not be threatened."

Actually, in the U.S., no one should be threatened. In fact, there are laws against threatening people with bodily harm and the apply to everyone, not just journalists. As I told WPIX, an appropriate response is to boycott or picket or otherwise express disapproval. Physically threatening someone is never the right thing to do.

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A previous donor to the site has made a very generous offer to match any donations to the site made by Wednesday 1/9 up to a maximum of $1,000. If you were thinking of making a donation to the site now is the time.

Rob is doing a great job. I will match any donation until 9 Jan up to a cumulative of $1k. As stated my total matching donation will be $1,000.00. Support Rob so he can continue to support the 2nd amendment: The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess and carry firearms.

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UPDATE: The Journal News has removed their gun map. Before you ask. "No, we are not taking down our map".

Here is the official statement from Janet Hasson:

With the passage this week of the NYSAFE gun law, which allows permit holders to request their names and addresses be removed from the public record, we decided to remove the gun permit data from lohud.com at 5 pm today.

While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit. For the past four weeks, there has been vigorous debate over our publication of the permit data, which has been viewed nearly 1.2 million times by readers. One of our core missions as a newspaper is to empower our readers with as much information as possible on the critical issues they face, and guns have certainly become a top issue since the massacre in nearby Newtown, Conn. Sharing as much public information as possible provides our readers with the ability to contribute to the discussion, in any way they wish, on how to make their communities safer.

We remain committed to our mission of providing the critical public service of championing free speech and open records.

Self-serving claptrap from a woman who thought she could pick a fight at a time and place of her choosing, declare the rules for the fight and call the fight when she had enough.

Sorry, Janet. It doesn't work that way. Our map of your employees stays.

UPDATE: Just taped a radio interview with Gary Baumgarten of 1010 WINS-NY. Let me know if you hear it air. Teaser: he asked me if this was a victory, my answer "yes!"

I Have Been Reading These All Morning , I Mean We Have , A Few Good Men , Ya , Marines (Former), and Have Concluded That This could only happen in Yankee Land , down here (Terrebone Parish , La. ) we don't have time to discuss little girl S**t Like This , We Just Can't Figure Why its so important to give these Suckers the time O'Day ?
Just Don't Talk about em ,and they'll go away , maybe when some guy jumps off the Empire state bldg. or something .
JUST DON'T BUY THEIR RAG , And Pass em By When They Gotta Tin Cup !
Y'all b Good Now ,Cap'n Bubba , Bayou Tesh La.
Cap'n Bubba Gatuh Hunts , Bayou Tesh , La.

Can someone drive by their homes and see if they have home security system yard signs? Also would be nice if they could publish if they see a fenced yard, a dog, tall bushes, etc. also, the home values, party afiliations, etc.

We felt it was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings (to publish this information)... where so many Anti-American socialists are trying to capitalize on the tragic act of a deranged individual.

"where so many Anti-American socialists are trying to capitalize on the tragic act of a deranged individual."

Bingo! All anti-american socialists preach this propaganda. It is called APARTHEID. Minority (deranged killer who glorified Satan I might add) ruling the majority. Aren't you sick of this kind of garbage? I am! We dont need our rights taken away because of ONE person. This started in 1964 and has snow balled.

Point made and perhaps some poetic justice but it ignores the fact that people do fear homes with guns and have some interest in knowing who owns a metal thing that can make smaller metal things go faster for the express purpose of killing.

Maybe you think that the safety issues (I think largely exaggerated) and the stigma issues (less dire and sexy to talk about but more realistic) outweigh the need of fellow residents and especially parents to know this info. (gun accidents are rare but do happen)

I don't think this particularly informs the debate. People realize how invasive posting addresses can be (without needing this stunt to illustrate it) which is why many large media outlets have picked up this story. (and largely leaning toward the idea they shouldn't have posted the info)

Posting this info seems vengeful, ignores some of the nuance of the debate and is likely to lead to harassment.

The readership just attests to the interest it generates not the actual value it gives. I'm sure the map that caused all the controversy in the first place has a ton of viewers as well.

There is a reason why (perhaps an irrational one) that people wanted to know gun owner locations. There is really very little reason to give anything but contact info for the Journal News employees besides harassment and to illustrate point. (even if you argue an address is contact info... why a map and personal phone numbers?)

I truly hope some day soon someone posts information about you on a map to "mark" you because you don't follow the perverse teachings of socialists scum. I truly do. Then MAYBE you'll finally get a clue. Remove your head from your ass.

when there is an Anonymous who appears to be from the Journal News and posting on the side of the invaders of privacy and an Anonymous in Illinois and an Anonymous in New Rochelle who is with those who are against the invaders of privacy in the Journal News.

So anyone can post as 'anonymous'? I didn't realize that.

Dear Anonymous who lives in New Rochelle and is against what the Journal News did: you might want to identify yourself as Anonymous #1, so your posts can be differentiated from the Journal News moles and cowards on this board.

I like the honesty. This was done for vengeance and likely to incite harassment. I'll give Bob a break and say maybe it was legitimately meant to prove a point and just with a disregard for the possible harassment it may incite since they brought it upon themselves. (even though it is hard to argue that every Journal News employee deserved to be punished)

I hate those marxists too. We should have a map of all of them. I fear that this county, dare I say this state, is full of them.

I don't see why they should be excluded from the map - maybe it will help convince them to keep their dogs on a tighter leash. The Journal certainly didn't make any distinctions about who they included on THEIR map - it's not like they only showed 'bad/dangerous' gun owners. This map simply replaced the broad 'gun owners' data with 'Journal Employees' data - aside from that I see no difference. This is just an example to help them understand the concept that even if something is a matter of public record, that doesn't mean broadcasting it or highlighting it in a full-frontal public display is a good idea.

Is turnabout really always fair play? Besides my point that it isn't quite a 1:1 comparison, most of us learned in elementary school/ church/ anywhere they teach this stuff that an "eye for an eye" philosophy isn't that great.

Uh, an 'eye for an eye' is quite effective, which is why in certain circumstances it is entirely appropriate.

The press, in this instance, has deemed it fair play to alert the public to the addresses of individuals who own guns. Likewise, let them explain why it is not fair for others to publish their own personal information.

They are being schooled with the effects of their own 'logic' and 'reasoning'.